Blog Posts Tagged Under: movement-therapy

Movement therapy is also known as movement psychotherapy, dance movement therapy or dance movement psychotherapy. At The Dispensary our sessions are called “Moving Body “ workshops. The professional organisation governing Movement therapy calls it the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance through which a person can engage creatively in a process to further their emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration. Basically there are three key assumptions: The first is that body and mind interact, so that a change in movement will affect total functioning and vice versa. Secondly, movement reflects personality, and thirdly movement contains a symbolic function and as such can be evidence of unconscious process. Movement therapy started in 1940s in USA with an American dance teacher Marian Chace. She found that some students came to her sessions and didn't progress with the dance, but came back every week and she wondered why this was. When she asked them they said that through the dance they could connect to their emotions and it enabled them to move through their emotional issues and difficult stages in their lives. From this Marian formed therapeutic dance groups in America and that was the foundation of dance movement therapy. The starting point for any kind of movement therapy is the body, and many people feel out of touch with their bodies. Our minds are often busy, full of what we should be doing, making plans, worrying about future events and running over past events, chattering away. It's easy to forget that we also experience ourselves through our body, our senses, taste, touch, sight, hearing and smell are all experiences of our body, when our senses are activated, we also engage with emotions, imaginations and thoughts, when we are embodied we are connected to our body's energies and the flow of sensations, feelings and thoughts. Being embodied means that our energy allows us to express our emotions fully. A healthy child will embody emotions allowing them to flow and move freely, laughter will be from the belly and crying will move through the whole body sometimes shaking to release the sadness. Excitement joy all have bodily reactions. Unfortunately for many of us life's experiences as we grow up cause us to hold back on this emotion.